Newton Lodge, Fieldhead

Newton Lodge.

The first document held by the Wakefield municipal District Council’s ArchivesDept dealing with the district of Field Head is dated 1672 (exactly three centuriesbefore the opening of Field Head mental Handicap Hospital). Charles II was onthe Throne in that vear.

The date of the exact building of “Field Head, (or Newton Lodge) is somewhatdifficult to define precisely. The Ordnance Survey for 1,794 shows the house andaccompanylng cottages clearly, and a Deed dated 1782 conveying the land to a ThomasHarison mentions the messuages. or houses, etc., on the land. A plan of thearea in or around 17O9, although showing Hatfeild HaIl and Clarke Hall shows nobuilding at all at Field head. As the Deed of l782 mentions property then extant,a date c1750 would seem a reasonable surmise for the erection of Field Head House.

The Deed of 1782 describes Thomas Harrison as a ‘yeoman. The original FieldHead would therefore have been a farmhouse, and indeed could have been built inthe first place as part of a tenanted farm.

Apart from the ownership of the house and lands passing down, and out of the handsof, the family no further records of its use appear until 1842, when under Actsof Parliament of George IV, William IV, and Victoria, the house was licensed toa William Haigh to be used as a Private Asylum for the reception of four femalelunatics. At this time there were two other such Asylums locally, PainthorpeHouse and Rook Nest House at Stanley. Records show that none of these were usedas Private Asylums for more than a few years, the last record at Field head beingdated February 1844, when it was noted that the Licence had only been grantedfor six months run “in consequence of its being doubtful whether there would be twopatients in the Institution at the expiration of that period”.Some interesting points emerge from examination of the Field Head Asylums VisitorsBook. The first is that the Medical Visitor appointed to serve with the threeJustices as a Visiting Panel was Dr. Thomas Geordani Wright, the well-knownWakefield General Practitioner who served the Wakefi.eld Asylum as Visiting Physiciana phenomenal 64 years from 1833 until his death, still “in harness”, in 1898 –surely an all time record! He it was on whom most of the strain fell in theappalling epidernic of Pestilential Cholera, as he described it, of 1849, when nofewer than a quarter of the WakefieLd Asylum patient population perished. Wrightsmanuscript and published records make sombre reading.

Use of the title “Field Head” is somewhat confusing, as at one time and anotherthere have been four estabfishments with the same name. Records show that in1872 the Asylum Authorities purchased “Field Head”, and indeed in many followingyears mention is made in records of “Field Head Convalescent Home”. This property,however, was most likely an old Farmhouse North East of Ouchthorpe Lane, demolishedin the 193O’s

After its use as a Private Asylum, Field Head must have reverted to more mundaneoccupancy, and it was not until 1914 that it once again surfaced in the affairsof mental health.

Dr. (later Professor) Joseph Shaw Bolton had been appointed Medical Superintedentand Director in 1910 to succeed Dr. WiIIiam Bevan-Lewis. The Medical SuperintendentsResidence at that time remained as it had been since the Asylum had been builtin 1818, in the centre of the old building. Pressure on accommodation for patientswas so acute in 1914 that it became necessary to seek alternative housing for theDirector. That year, “Field Head Farm” came on the property market, and as itappeared to fill the requirements of a Superintendent’s Residence, it was bought,along with 11 acres of land and other property, for some £4OOO, renovated, andoccupied by Dr. Bolton on a rental basis, the rental of £78 per annum being laterwaived and an amount of £5O per annum being substituted as an emolument forsuperannuation purposes.

Medical Superintendents of Mental Hospitals at that time enjoyed an almost fuedallifestyle. Patient labour was plentiful and free, so that the house and gardenswere always well tended. Provisions and garden produce were included in theemolumonts, and needless to say only the best found its way to Field Head. These,and many other comfortable practices traditionally enjoyed by many in the asylumservice did not survive the changes in administration in the 1930’s.

The 1920’s and 1930 ‘s saw once again a fearful increase in the demand for mentalhospital beds, the Mental Treatment Act of 1930 no doubt contributing in no smallmeasure, by introducing for the first time measures enabling the admission ofpatients on a voluntary basis. Once again attention was turned to the possibleuse by patients of the accommodation occupied by the Superintendent, which, withits proximity to the new and enlarged farm, appeared to be admirably suited toconversion to a Farm Patients’Hostel. At this time, Mr.G.P. Howarth, the Coroner’owned yet another Field Head House at the top of Bar Lane, and this he wished tosell. He would have liked to have rented our Field Head, but his request to doso was turned dolvn. Instead he acquired an old house next door to his own,selling the latter to the West Riding Mental Hospitals Board for £24OO, in 1934.This was then occupied by Dr. Shaw Bolton, and to avoid confusion, was laterre-named “The Gables”. In 1983 it houses the College of Remedial Gymnastics.

Field Head was indeed admirably suited to the needs of the farm working patients’providing privacy, peaceful seclusion, easy access to the farm and sumoundingfields, adequate boot and clothes changing facilities within the Coach House, andminimum supervision. The Board of Control had little difficulty in approving thechange of user, and in 1937, 36 patients moved in.

Although farming activities steadily declined in the ensuing years, there wasnever any dearth of applicants to fill vacancies at the Home, which gave l i t t l eimpression of being connected with the main hospital, the staff assuming the roleof warden rather than psychiatric nurse. Few doors were ever locked, and patientswere given almost unfettered freedom.

In 1972 a narne was being sought for the new Mental Handicap Hospital, and historywas in danger of repeating itsetf by adding yet another “Field Head” title tothe previous three, so it was resolved that the original Field Head should become“Newton Lodge”, which rernained the title until its final demolition to make wayfor a Regional Secure Unit in 1981